Sacramento street sweeping costs $1.5M a year, covered 60,000 miles in 2024
Mileage records show that street sweepers collectively traveled 60,852 miles as they cleaned Sacramento’s streets last year.
In other words, without leaving the roadways of California’s capital city, 11 vehicles traveled far enough to circumnavigate the earth two and a half times, or a quarter of the way to the moon.
Records released by the Department of Public Works in response to a Public Records Act request also show that sweeping services cost the city about $1.4 million a year. The largest expense was labor, at a cost of $664,897 in the 2022-23 fiscal year. The second-largest expense was repair and maintenance of the hulking fleet, at $433,903. Fuel cost $148,025, about 40 cents per mile.
The city aims to sweep every public street with a curb and a gutter at least once a month from February through October, picking up small pieces of litter and debris that can clog storm drains.
Throwing that detritus away is the third-most expensive component of sweeping. The city paid $191,818 to USA Waste of California, better known as Waste Management, to dispose of thousands of pounds over the 2022-23 fiscal year. On average, it costs close to $15,000 each month.
Another overlooked cost of this critical city function: laundry. Jesa David, a spokesperson for the Recycling and Solid Waste Division of the Department of Public Works, said that costs for “laundry services” include the rental and cleaning of employee uniforms. That ran up a tab of about $1,500 a year.
The city’s 11-strong fleet of street sweeping vehicles got a little smaller in 2022. The records show that a 2014 Elgin “Broom Bear” retired. Elgin, the Illinois-based manufacturer, names its models after animals, and also made a Badger, a Pelican and an Eagle.
The models that are in service the most, mileage records show, are the Global R4Airs, made by San Bernardino-based Global Environmental Products. The R4Airs operate more quietly than many other models, the company says, and has a relatively tight turning radius. It blasts out air on the left side and sucks up debris on the right side. The truck also shoots out water and features the iconic “front-articulating broom.” The truck also comes equipped with Bluetooth.
This story was originally published July 14, 2025 at 10:36 AM.
